Racial and Sexual Others in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
Date Issued
2005
Date
2005
Author(s)
Chang, Hsiao-Ling
DOI
en-US
Abstract
This thesis aims at debunking the subversive power of the racial and sexual Others in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby while at the same time recognizes Fitzgerald’s consciousness of the race, gender, and class issues in the twenties instead of submission to the contemporary white ideology. Although The Great Gatsby has been regarded as a masterpiece in its delineation of the disillusionment of the American Dream, the issues on race and women are often trivialized or even ignored in its studies. However, as the spokesman of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald probes into the race and women issues, intermingled with class distinction, in the depiction of the marginalized characters. Through a socio-cultural study, it is hoped that this study will offer a reading that recognizes Fitzgerald’s contribution to the portrayal of the rebelliousness of the Other in the 1920s instead of his ignorance of it.
The first chapter focuses on the formation of the concept of “whiteness” in the twenties and the delineations of races in the novel. Through the blacks’ and the Jews’ rise in economic status and Gatsby’s fall despite of his financial success, Fitzgerald unveils the tension between whites and “nonwhites” as well as the stigmatization of the racial Other. The second chapter will investigate into the rebellious female characters in the novel despite men’s attempt to regulate their desire into commodities in a capitalist society. As Luce Irigaray argues, women are “disciplined” into the roles of “mother, virgin, and prostitute” in a patriarchal society. However, the wives’ and career women’s refusal to stay in the fixed positions in the novel demonstrate the subversive power of women that recognize and resist the oppression from men. Through the rebelliousness of marginalized characters, Fitzgerald presents the power struggle between white male and the racial/sexual Other.
Subjects
種族他者
性別他者
爵士年代
大亨小傳
racial Other
sexual Other
the Jazz Age
The Great Gatsby
Type
thesis
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